


Finding The Lost

by WinterTheWriter



Series: Building Happily Ever After [20]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Doctor Who (2005), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, I cried writing this, It's a healthy platonic relationship, It's not bromance, M/M, Neither Sam nor Steve nor Koschei die, Non-sexualized male friendship, Past Love, missing chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 04:23:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9862448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterTheWriter/pseuds/WinterTheWriter
Summary: Steve drags Sam out on a mission on just a hunch. He's never hated being right so much in his life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Third update of the night. I am on FIRE (probably because it hurts to stand but y'anno). I'm so sorry for this but also I'm not. This takes place directly before Lost And Found, hence the title (that I recognize is cheesy and lazy and bad but do not care enough about to change), so if you've read that, you know how this one's gonna end. If you haven't, well...you're probably gonna want to after this. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Steve squints up at the midday sun, reaching his hand up shield the worst of the rays from his eyes. “Y’know,” he complains, nudging Sam with his shoulder and pausing their trek, “you’d think something that damn bright would provide, like, just a /little/ bit of warmth.” Sam laughs a bit breathlessly and stretches his arms up and behind him, elbows and wrists cracking with the movement. 

“Nah, man. That’d be far too nice for us,” he jokes, laying down his backpack and unceremoniously plopping down into it in the snow. 

“Good point,” Steve snorts, holding his jacket tighter around himself and leaning against an icy boulder wedged into the side of the mountain. They’d been climbing since sun-up, just the two of them, on an impromptu mission based pretty much entirely on a hunch. Steve had shaken Sam awake at 5 in the morning mumbling something about a secret, last-minute mission he doesn’t want to do with anyone else, and, well, the ego boost there was pretty good motivation to get out of bed that early on a Saturday. 

And, of course, Steve’s his best friend, yada yada yada. 

But Steve couldn’t shake the feeling that, despite every single piece of evidence indicating otherwise, Bucky was here, in the Poconos Mountains, far too high for even most daring of skiers, rather than the Russian tundra he should be in. He’d left a note for Koschei saying that he was fine, and so was Sam, and they’d be in contact ASAP but he didn’t want to say too much yet, kissed him on the cheek (and receiving a sleepy grumble for his efforts), and slipped out. He knows this is most likely a dead end, but he also knows he would’ve died a skinny, sick little thing in the 40’s if he never trusted his intuition just a little blindly. 

So here they are. 

Sam shifts his weight to the side just enough to unzip his pack and pull out two thermoses and a couple sandwiches in ziplocks, tossing Steve his ration and thermos and eagerly opening his own. Steve nudges him to the side so they can share his impromptu seat and for a few minutes they eat in silence, hunger overcoming everything else as they scarf down their sandwiches and sip their coffee. With a satisfied sigh, Steve bunches up his empty ziplock and tucks it into one of his suit’s pockets, focusing all his attention on his coffee. Sam grins at him around his mouthful. Steve grins right back, albeit a bit shakily, and looks out at the vast expanse of mountains and forest below them, snow shining and sparkling like a diamond crust that swirls and dances through the air with every icy gust of wind, evergreens swaying and whispering against each other. It’s achingly beautiful, but all Steve can think about is Bucky, his Bucky, alone and terrified and freezing somewhere hidden, and instead of a frozen landscape for tourists to flock to, he just sees a tomb.

“Hey,” Sam nudges him, smiling reassuringly when Steve looks at him. “We’re gonna find him, okay? He’s a highly trained soldier — probably made his own damn log cabin by now, fireplace and stove and everything.” Steve smiles a little despite himself, nodding his head and looking down. 

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” They both know Steve doesn’t mean his words, but — thankfully — neither of them mention it. He’s so grateful to have a best friend like Sam. He loves Koschei with all he has, really, and they were best friends before they were lovers (sort of), but Sam’s been there since Day One. It’s different. 

Besides, Sam can fly, and they’re on a mountain. If Steve weren’t so paranoid about accidentally zooming past Bucky, they’d already be at the top. 

“What are you gonna do when we find him?” Sam asks, an unspoken “/since you’re in a relationship”,/ trailing past it. There’s no judgement in his eyes but Steve can’t really meet them anyways. He shrugs his shoulders. 

“I—don’t know. I know I love Bucky, and I know I love Koschei, and I know I refuse to lose either of them.”

“There /is/ an option for that, you know.”

“We’re from the 40’s, Sam,” Steve laughs. 

“Yeah, and yet you fuck men,” he snorts, raising his eyebrows. “Just saying, I doubt Bucky would really mind that much if he’s anything like you’ve told me, and Koschei’s alien ass definitely wouldn’t.” They both laugh and Steve can’t help but agree. He feels just a little bit warmer at the thought. It’s a lot, but…the idea of waking up with both of the loves of his life every morning, seeing them love each /other/ as much as Steve loves them — it sounds pretty picture perfect. He bets Koschei would like Bucky a lot. He can’t wait to introduce them, actually. 

With a renewed enthusiasm that’s only partially because of the coffee and sandwich sitting in his belly, Steve hops up and holds out a hand. “C’mon, Sam. Up and at ‘em. We got a lot of mountain to cover and only a few hours of daylight left.” Sam groans playfully as he uses Steve’s hand to anchor himself up, packing away the thermoses and swinging the backpack around his shoulders. 

“On second thought,” he jokes, “they’d probably hate each other so, y’know, we should probably head back down and — take a nap or something, yeah? Leave Bucky with his log cabin in peace—HEY!” 

The snowball in Sam’s face might’ve been immature, but hey, since when are best friends ever mature with each other? 

~

The sight of silver and red glinting in the setting sun has never been so scary and relieving at the same time. Sam sees it at the same time Steve does, but it’s Steve who darts ahead towards it without hesitation, nerves and dread and hope, /so much hope/ swelling in his chest as he starts to dig. “Steve—,” Sam says, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder that’s quickly shaken off. He sounds — not frightened, exactly, but concerned, almost horrified, but it goes unheard. 

“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,” Steve chants, breathless and quiet as he digs fruitlessly around the snow. “Bucky, baby, can you hear me? You ain’t frozen on me, are ya?” His Brooklyn accent comes out thick, like no time has passed at all, because for them, for /him/, it never will. 

“/Steve/,” Sam repeats, a little more urgently this time. Steve waves him off, shaking his head, and he kneels on one knee to ground himself as he grabs the metal hand in both of his. 

“Gonna pull now, Buck, okay?” Is he crying? Why is he crying? His hands are shaking and he feels sick and that’s stupid, just stupid, because he /found/ him. He didn’t fail. He found Bucky and he’s gonna take him home and Koschei’s gonna love him and —

And he pulls, pulls as hard as he can, but instead of seeing Bucky’s face finally looking at him once more, the momentum sends him flying back into the snow, still holding the hand that isn’t attached to anyone at all. 

He won’t let go of it. He can’t. He’s clutching it to his chest and heaving, dry-gagging and sobbing and gasping and Sam is hugging him tightly but instead of looking at the arm in Steve’s grasp, he’s looking several feet ahead of where the arm was, his face stony even though his own tears shine on his cheeks. Steve follows his gaze, blinking through wet-blurred vision, and all he needs to see is just a hint of flank before Sam’s in front of him and blocking his view, holding his cheeks in his hands. 

“Steve, /no/,” Sam commands, harsh and quiet and pleading. Steve, shaking and confused and terrified, tries to crane his neck around to see but Sam blocks him at every angle. 

“Sa-Sam that’s — Bucky, that’s Bucky, h-he— could still be —alive, I need t—,” he rambles disjointedly, hugging the arm to his chest like a teddy bear.

“He’s /not/.” 

The apparent cruelty of the words is enough to silence him, staring at his best friend in horrified shock. Sam purses his lips and shuts his eyes for a moment before opening them, smoothing the hair back from Steve’s forehead. 

“I’m sorry. Steve, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, but he’s — he’s gone.” 

“You can’t tell that from here, Sam, y-you—,”

“I can. I promise you I can.”

“…L-let me see, then, let me— you could be wrong, just let me—,”

“/Steve/, I am your best friend and I love you and I am not going to let you do that to yourself.” He tightens his grip on Steve’s cheeks, pressing their foreheads together. “You know me. And you know if — if there were /any/ chance of me being wrong, I’d’ve dragged you to him myself. But man, don’t do this. I need you to just — just /trust/ me when I say there isn’t. There isn’t, and he’s gone, and you do not need to see just how /gone/ he is. Okay?” 

Steve stares at him, sobbing and ripped open from the inside and trembling, and all he can say is, “He must’ve been so cold.” 

 

~

The arm is safely stored away in SHIELD’s vaults, locked behind a password encrypted door that only Steve knows the answer to. 

Steve takes a break from missions, so Koschei goes on double — he’d work every day for the rest of his life if Steve needed him to. 

Privately, secretly, Koschei seeks Sam out and thanks him for everything, and when the horror of what he saw, both from the body and seeing his best friend break down his arms, gets to be too much to relive, Koschei lets this almost-stranger cry in his arms as he silently vows to get closer to him. 

No one at the funeral knows the casket is empty.


End file.
